From the archives: Moose!

pulled onto Jenne road at 8:15, a left turn. As I advanced down the narrow dirt path at perhaps 10 or 15 mph, something moved in my left peripheral. I slammed on the brakes, stopping Gemma (my car) in her tracks. At the same moment, the poor moose I had startled walked out of the bushes to the side of the car, just a foot from my front bumper. I sat very still, being slightly worried that the moose would get the idea that I was trouble and should be trompled.  

The moose had other plans. He (I’m assuming it’s a he. It was a moose of moderate size without antlers) started ambling down the center of the road in front of me, completely blocking passage by any way.

So I waited. And I waited. The moose butt in front of me continued to mosey and generally take its time getting down the road ahead. When it was a moose butt in the distance, I started scootching up, revving my engine a little to let him know I was there. 

Two big moose eyes and ears turned to look at me in a vague, moose-like approximation of indignation. I stopped and went back to staring at moose-butt. Finally he decided, of his own accord, mind you, to get off the road, and stepped delicately into some shrubs. 

As I pulled past the spot where he had disappeared I muttered under my breath in mild frustration: Meese.

Originally posted to a previous (now defunct) blog on August 28th, 2006. One of two moose-sightings I had while living in Vermont!

Moths and coincidences.

Yesterday I found this moth lying against the curb on the sidewalk in Dupont. I thought he was gone from this world, and tried to at least move him to a happy resting place in the grass just over the curb, but as I slid the magazine under him he flapped and jumped an inch in the air before coming down to rest again. It took about five minutes to get him to hold still on my magazine, and then, as I went to lower him onto the grass, he took off and flew away across traffic to some rooftop. I never thought I'd see one of these in downtown dc. The distance from one wingtip to the other was maybe 5 inches.

Then, a block away, as we walked to the corner to cross the street, I noticed a man who looked a bit familiar. There being a lot of people in DC, I assumed he was just another face, but after 30 seconds of awkward and mutual staring, he said "Marlboro? ...Elli??" Yup, I managed to be on the one street corner in the whole city where I could run into the former Marlboro Math Fellow who came from England to teach for two years. He just happened to be in DC after leaving VT and before going on wherever else in the world he was going. It's a very very small world, sometimes.